November 2, 2025 • 22 mins
Sophie has been elected Mayor of Dunedin, becoming only the second woman to hold the role in the city’s history. An incumbent councillor, Barker secured 16,001 votes, finishing 726 votes ahead of runner-up Andrew Simms in the preliminary results.
In her post-election message, Barker expressed gratitude to the community for their support, saying she was “humbled and honoured” by the trust placed in her and her vision for Dunedin. She paid tribute to those who paved the way before her, acknowledging the milestone of following in the footsteps of Dunedin’s first female mayor, Sukhi Turner.
Looking ahead to her mayoral term, Barker has outlined a clear set of priorities, including advocating strongly for Dunedin Hospital, ensuring value for ratepayers, improving council culture, promoting the city, and fostering economic growth. Her election marks a new chapter for Dunedin, one shaped by optimism, inclusivity, and a commitment to the city’s future.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and our Wide Ranger podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real life with John Cowen
on News Talk z EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good day. My name's John cown and my guest and
I who worship the Mayor of Dunedin, Sophie Barker is
with me. Now welcome to real life and congratulations are
winning the mayoralty, Cura.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
And thank you very much. It's been a whirlwind.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I bet it, as I mean it's hard work getting
any job these days, and getting the job of the
top job at the council must have been a lot
of work. How was campaigning for you really hard?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I think I did seventeen events, so it was just
three on one day.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So it was just being being for a couple of months.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So, as you say, a very long job interview and
in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Which is quite varied.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well you got there and fortunately you had I guess
the track record that you built up over several sessions
in council.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Now, yes, yes, so I've been in council for six
years and certainly a big part of the community for
all of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I think that in the end it's people power
that counts.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, and a good high public profile. I mean you
have been rated as the top councilor by the ODT,
and lots of things leading in your favor including, as
you say, a lifetime scrubbing in behind and Eden, getting
people to come there, getting people to stay there. And
so that goes right back to when you were born,
(01:54):
being born in being raised in Dunedin's number one paid attraction.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Indeed, well, my parents were in North Islanders, but I
can say I was born and bred and dneden Nite
because I was born shortly after my parents came to
Duneita in nineteen sixty seven to do the mess now
you know how old and my parents were on holiday
in the South Island and ended up buying Lana Castle
because they saw the potential in it, and I was
(02:21):
born six weeks later.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, so there's a track for any North Islanders I think,
you know, just go freedom camping around the South Island
and then buy any castle that you.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Find, calling her a freedom camper.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
It's true though, so they bought Lanak Castle. So this
makes it sound like to know to the manner born waiters,
butlers and living in a luxurious manner.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
No, it was absolutely not like that at all. It
was very very hard work.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
And when my parents bought it, it was incredibly run
down and they'd been che kept in the ballroom. And
I remember even a few years later on someone going
through on the top floor to their armpits because the
floor was so rash, and it was you know, people
think glamorous, but it was really really hard work.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And bossoms and rats and the roofs.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And yeah and leaky. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
My first memories are of it used to just when
it rained, it used to sleep terribly and I used
to have to run around and put all the buckets
under the leaks, and then of course empty the buckets
if it rained for too long.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And my mum tells me.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
About waking up on Christmas Day and they just Beaber
was flooded because all of the water had come through
two floors. And when I hosted dinners, when I started
doing that when I was about thirteen, and I used
to have to sit sort of not at the head
of the table, so halfway down, and people would say
why are you sitting there, and I'd say, well, I
have to sit with the leakers move and you know,
(03:56):
other groups might not move, and I'd sit there and
wait for the troops without flinching.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Of course, that's amazing. And was it a creepy place
to live in? Was it a scary place?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was year super scary? Actually when we were little, we
were in.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
The what's now the bedroom before my brother and I
had a room at the side, and we used to
climb out of the window and go across the rooms
to go to the bathroom because we wouldn't't want to
go past them haunted bedroom, you know, and their overhead experiences.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I used to well one of them. It used to
be we moved under.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
The music room and at night time just lieing petrified
because I could hear it, like someone's squeak, squeaks creak,
like someone walking. And then eventually I confessed about how
paralyzed were fear and someone said to me, oh, it's
just the building calling down, so you know, but often
it's trying to find the explanations. And we had rats
in the ceiling as well, so they'd scurry around, and
(04:56):
possums going outside. And then I heard footsteps one morning
when I was lying in bed thinking about getting up
and making breakfast for our guess, and they were unexplained.
So I went upstairs and I went to the kitchen,
looked at the sign and no one there, went around
the randa and then just came out and turned the
radios on and prayed for.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
People to get to work because that was unexplained.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So that sounds more like, you know, living in the
Adams family mentioned rather than in Lanark Castle. But what
a fantastic place you turned it into. I mean a
lot of a lot of work and so that was
your childhood, getting that place scrubbed up, and.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, yeah, my mother's the visionary behind that.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
And I gave a took the other night, and it
was about how that love for architecture had come down
through our family. My grandad was in the First World
War at the Battle of the Somme, so he was
one of only two of his unit to survive, and
he was very fortunate that he got He also was
in the Kiwis who went round and entertained the troops,
and he went to the Silvan University after he was
(06:03):
at the war because they had scholarships, and there he
learned the love for architecture and saw what it could be,
and bought beat the postcards and the programs.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
He was in the he went to the Paris Conservatoire
of Music.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
So amazing experience for a young man who'd been through
so much torture, I guess during that war. And then
he brought the postcards back, took to my mum about
them and stilled a lover architecture and her And then
when they came upon the castle, she could see the
potential there. So she's still working full time at eighty
three at the castle. It's a lifelong love and commitment.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Wow. It must have been a long way from other
kids and things as well. Living out on the out
on the on the peninsula that was. That must have
been tricky.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, we had.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
The local kids, you know that, and a lot of
the locals fors just down the road, so they'd come
up and we would.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I'm afraid we're a little bit naughty.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's all right. You're elected now you can confess hight under.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
The beds and grab people's ankles to make them friend.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
This is paying guests, so that look, I'm sure it
all added to the experience of living in a castle
for a while. Then you went off to boarding school.
And I saw in some notes that you wrote that
you went off to boarding school to learn social skills.
Did you feel like that that was a fat tongue
in cheek or was it you were actually a little
bit sort of.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Introvertedh oh, absolutely INTROVERTSI and I was the geek that
was allowed to get ten books out of the library.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
The usual limit was four. But I just read all
the time.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
And I think my mother thought that I needed a
good education and also to develop those social skills because
I just, you know, growing up in a scary old
castle out the Pincher. There was a long way away
then and the school buses didn't connect. So she thought
that I should go to boarding school.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Okay, and then off to Otaga University. If you didn't
learn social skills at at boarding school, you certainly led
it in probably the top social university in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, Well we had been locked up at boarding school
for five years and then let loose in the nineteen
eighties at Attagger University, so I certainly had a good time.
I did manage to get my degree in the end,
but it was an amazing time.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You know. We had all of the eighties sound all
of those bands.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
We didn't appreciate them at the time, I guess because
to us it was just normal. So it was a
great time and I learned a lot, not just academically.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So what did you do after university?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
While I was at Universe, I was working full time
at the castle as well. So I'd been taking tours
around since I was around about thirteen years old, and
then at eighteen, I was going up to Auckland, et cetera,
going around the travel agents with the briefcase and the postcards,
selling Dunedin and selling the castle as well, so I
was straight into the marketing.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I also did the operations. I did all the pays.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
That's when it was all cash, you know, and you'd
have ten cents over and we have to go through
all the pay packets again, running functions, just working really
really hard because we head to as a family to
get the castle up and going. In the eighties, we
were paying twenty four percent interest on our loans. You know,
people are going seven percent. We're like, yeah, we did
(09:25):
twenty four.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, So your whole working life really I know that
you went off and worked also for these at the
Otago Peninsula trust and looking after penguins and albatrosses and things,
and so your whole life has really been promoting Dunedin.
And so as you can do this automatically, give us
(09:47):
five great things about Dunedin that people should know about.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Well, I guess we're a city of first and only
and that's that's where we stand. So we've got I
have to say New seven Castle, don't I the Royal
Albatross Center, which is the world's only main end royal albatross.
We've got the world's rare as penguins with the yellow
eyed penguins, the world's smallest penguins. I worked at Blue
Penguis Pukakua there. And then we have our railway station,
(10:13):
which apparently is one of the most photographed buildings in
the Southern Hemisphere. So heritage and Wildlife Capital of New
Zealand and we are extremely proud of that.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Right, So why do people go Auckland grow to Ruer
christ jur Queenstown home Again?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I have no idea because the best experiences here.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah. So is that part of the thing you're going
to do is really try and drive to Eden to
become a tourist destination.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, we want to be a premier destination for the country.
We certainly have so much to offer our visitors, and
also just to raise our profile and work on our
economic development as well, because for a small city where
you certainly need to power up and all work in
partnership together to make us as fabulous as we can be.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Okay, well, what's the noun? Fabulosity is already there, I
just I guess getting people to know about it it is.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I think it's one of those PEPs. It's a Presbyterian
Scottish thing where.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
We just don't skche you know, and we need to
get out there and be better at skitching or sharing
or promoting our city because we're just a little bit
pequin and coming forward I think right.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Okay, well, look after the break, I'd like to talk
to you a bit more about what your dreams and
plans are for Dunedin, how you are wanting to promote it,
how you can get the city working in a way
that's going to drive it forward into the rest of
the twenty first century. My guest tonight is who Worship
the Mayor, Sophie Barker, Mayor of Dunedin, and I'll be
back with you in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news
Talks Abno Day.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Welcome back to real life. I'm John Cown talking with
Sophie Barker, the new mayor of Dunedin, and just to
prove her Otago credentials, she's chosen that to listen to.
What are we listening to?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Listening to the Chills one of my favorite bands and
Heavenly Pops. When I was in New York on time,
I went into the Gap store and this was playing
and this was amazing just to hear at Dunedin sound
in New York City. How far we've conquered the world
with it.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Did you go around the store telling people I come
from musical this was this band from your Celand? Or
did you but too introverted? You mentioned that Dunedin has
a Presbyterian here heritage, and you can see that very
readily as you walking around the octagon, looking up at
the big church there and everything. Did any of that
(13:15):
soak into you as you were growing up? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Absolutely, because my boarding school was I was there for
five years and we prayed an awful lot, and I
think about one of the prayers. I think was a
school prayer was make us quick to know and serve
the needs of others. And I think that were so
ingrained in a moral core in me, because sometimes I
do ask myself, why am I doing this, this public
public life? But it is about doing the best for
(13:38):
the people that live in our city.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Okay. And so it has been a lifetime of service.
And what drew you into politics in particular? Was it
that idea of service or was it just a I
just thought, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I never ever thought that I would end up in politics.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
It's not my thing, really, I guess that I was
at the time. I'd worked at the Council for seven
years prior to working for the Otago Peninsula Trust, and
I knew about with strategy.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
It's terrible thing.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I knew about all the strategies in the plans, and
I was really frustrated that we weren't carrying them out
and we weren't really working in partnership. So that's when
I decided to stand for counsel, was to try and
sort some things.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Out, Okay. And so local body politics it's a strange
way of scrumbing towards some type of destination. When some
people pulling in one direction and other people pulling in
the other. You want to make changes and people need changes,
and yet nobody wants changed when it's happening in their street,
and it must be frustrating. Does it weigh you down?
Speaker 4 (14:46):
I think I'm a really optimistic and positive person, so
sometimes it might.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
People complain about the orange cones.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Orange cones everywhere, and I do say what orange cones
are asually about progress. If we didn't have orange cones,
we wouldn't be doing the roadwork. So that's not about
the stuff isn't getting down. But I take it all,
I guess with the grain of salt, because we have
to have change in order to get things done, and
in order to one of the things I stood on
was transformation and change.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So be warned.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Well, okay, the people you've given them fair warning, they've
voted you, and they're going to get it. So and
look at I'd have to say, I go to Dunedin
quite often. In fact, I have to confess I know
that Dunedin struggles with a falling population, and I'm guilty
of plundering Dunedin of one of its finest women, so
or perhaps the finest woman. So I'm guilty of there.
(15:36):
But one of the things I noticed down there is
you get a great new venue and people complain about it.
They get a fantastic cycle way around the harbor and
people complain about it that you upgrade streets to make
it more odd and everything. Is there a way that
you can sort of get around that or is this
the headwind you battle all the time?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
The city is growing, so we have a lot of
student in flux, which is really really helpful. They're sort
of kind of the lively heart of the city and
the population has been growing.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
We're working on the as well.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
There will always be people who complain, but when you
actually look at what we've done with the cycle way
along the harbor. Just my mum is out on the penance,
so you just drive out there and see all of
the people using it. And the cycle away was on
the front cover of the New Zealand column magazine, so
this You know, people always moan and grown about change,
but the thing is that it's actually lifting our profile.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And one of my goals is to make us the
best place.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
To live in New Zealand and work on our liveability,
and those are all important parts because we don't do
that work, then we go backwards.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So we need to keep investing in our city.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I think that's just human nature. I remember people someone
saying with the skytower and Auckland, people grizzled about it
and now, oh, look at our skytower. And sometimes I
suppose that's the cost of leadership. You just need to
be the one that goes out in front of the crowd. Sometimes.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, you need to have that vision and you need
to need to get things done, and it always is difficult.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Look at our stadium.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It was a huge issue and still a slight challenge,
but we wouldn't have it share and doing all those concerts,
or when you go in there and there's a big
event happening, like the rugby that we won last last week,
the Otago game.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I was there and just the amazing feeling when everybody
stands up. You know, those are the moments that we
live for, right.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Oh, well, so that takes the courage. It's also a stress.
What do you do to handle stress? How do you know?
How do you vent your stress or cope with it?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Oh my gardener, gon't call a few weeds out, plant
a few plants cut on my kittens. That's that's really
I think I'm pretty grounded and I've had a very
public life, so I just I like to get out
into nature.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Kittens plural, Yes, Well, we've.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Got three cats so well the kittens, oh my gosh,
it was the kitten's birthday the.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Other day, one of them. So there are all rescue cats.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
We've got one deaf cat who'se gosh, he's about ten
I think, and then two rescue kittens that we got
at the start of the year for my daughter.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I'm a sucker. She kept seeing me for my chosen
until I create do. We love them very much and
they give us much joy.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I have no idea how you could tell whether a
cat is deaf. Every cat I've ever had you speak,
you know, they just ignore you when you're talking, and
you talk true, And you talk to worms as well.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Oh no, well I do. I h I probably do
when I take them up in the gardener sometimes.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Sorry, I think I heard that you're a worm farmer.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I am a worm farmer.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I do have my worm farm and get my wormb
juice out, so when you know, I can relate to
the farmers in a little bit.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
But love my gardening.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Okay, So that's a and I guess over the years
you've needed some ways of stress and handling it because
as well as your busy life, you've been a single
parent of soil my mum and so that must have
had lots of challenges over the years.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Yes, my daughter was gosh five and a half weeks
so least that was a bit of a surprise. But
I've had a lot of support from friends in my
mum as well, and I'm very lucky. My daughter is
a lovely young woman. She's actually working in the same
building as me today. She's a fourth year law student,
so she works a part time.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Well, say hi to us from us. And health hasn't
always been on your side either.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yes, well, I do win scar competitions.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
When I was gosh thirteen years old, I lost my
spleen in a horse riding accident and.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Of course i had an emergency zazarian with my.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Daughter and then I've had three brain operations in sixteen months.
Because the health system was a bit of a challenge,
so I.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Certainly have the scars to prove it. I breck your
nose as well.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You need better hobbies than that, gosh, that's so yeah.
Health system in Dunedin. That's one of the challenges. I'm
sure you're going to be tackling that hospital.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, it's number one on my list because we absolutely
have to keep advocating for a hospital. And we had
the march of thirty five thousand in our city to
get our hospital built to the business case.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And it is very important.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
So I'm in an office at the moment for another
couple of weeks and I can look out onto the
hospital build site and it's still got the T shirt.
So we're ready to march again if we have to.
That is number one issue for racity.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Okay, is that a battle with central government? I guess
mayors have to front up to Wellington quite often.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, it's central government because in the end they control
the purse string, so they just need to be kept
aware of that.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And it's not just an.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Eden's hospital, it's the hospital, premier hospital for the Southern region.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
So working with the other mayors.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Is really important, just just to get the hospital built.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
All the best for that and what else is on
your agenda if that's at your top, what else is?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, we've got economic growth.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
That's always a challenge for the city and I talked
a little bit about city promotion there, but my key
is to rebuild partnerships, is that we can do things together.
So I've been contacting a lot of the people that
get stuff done in the.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
City, and we make sure that you know, in the.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
University, our business community, the hospital, etc. To try and
get everyone to work together Manifena as well, so that
we can all. You know, we've got an amazing city.
We just need to get work in partnership well.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And my not infrequent visits did Edin, I look forward
to tracking the progress and seeing what's happening. And I
thank you so much for taking time tonight to speak
with us. So my guest tonight has been her worship
the Mayor's Sophie Barker, and she's picked another song, What
are we listening to as We're going out?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Shake It Off? By Taylor Swift.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
It is a song for many local body politicians, I think.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And what said you, Oh, don't.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Read the comments sections advice because people do say dreadful
things and you literally have to shake it off.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Well. I hope that there's lots of lovely comments in
there as well as the critical ones. And so thank
you so much for taking time for being with us tonight.
This is real life. I'm newsed Talks. I'd be looking
forward to being back with you again next Sunday night.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
For more from News Talk st B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and our Wide Ranger podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real life with John Cowen
on News Talk z EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good day. My name's John cown and my guest and
I who worship the Mayor of Dunedin, Sophie Barker is
with me. Now welcome to real life and congratulations are
winning the mayoralty, Cura.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
And thank you very much. It's been a whirlwind.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I bet it, as I mean it's hard work getting
any job these days, and getting the job of the
top job at the council must have been a lot
of work. How was campaigning for you really hard?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I think I did seventeen events, so it was just
three on one day.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
So it was just being being for a couple of months.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So, as you say, a very long job interview and
in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Which is quite varied.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well you got there and fortunately you had I guess
the track record that you built up over several sessions
in council.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Now, yes, yes, so I've been in council for six
years and certainly a big part of the community for
all of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I think that in the end it's people power
that counts.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, and a good high public profile. I mean you
have been rated as the top councilor by the ODT,
and lots of things leading in your favor including, as
you say, a lifetime scrubbing in behind and Eden, getting
people to come there, getting people to stay there. And
so that goes right back to when you were born,
(01:54):
being born in being raised in Dunedin's number one paid attraction.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Indeed, well, my parents were in North Islanders, but I
can say I was born and bred and dneden Nite
because I was born shortly after my parents came to
Duneita in nineteen sixty seven to do the mess now
you know how old and my parents were on holiday
in the South Island and ended up buying Lana Castle
because they saw the potential in it, and I was
(02:21):
born six weeks later.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, so there's a track for any North Islanders I think,
you know, just go freedom camping around the South Island
and then buy any castle that you.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Find, calling her a freedom camper.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
It's true though, so they bought Lanak Castle. So this
makes it sound like to know to the manner born waiters,
butlers and living in a luxurious manner.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
No, it was absolutely not like that at all. It
was very very hard work.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
And when my parents bought it, it was incredibly run
down and they'd been che kept in the ballroom. And
I remember even a few years later on someone going
through on the top floor to their armpits because the
floor was so rash, and it was you know, people
think glamorous, but it was really really hard work.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And bossoms and rats and the roofs.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And yeah and leaky. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
My first memories are of it used to just when
it rained, it used to sleep terribly and I used
to have to run around and put all the buckets
under the leaks, and then of course empty the buckets
if it rained for too long.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And my mum tells me.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
About waking up on Christmas Day and they just Beaber
was flooded because all of the water had come through
two floors. And when I hosted dinners, when I started
doing that when I was about thirteen, and I used
to have to sit sort of not at the head
of the table, so halfway down, and people would say
why are you sitting there, and I'd say, well, I
have to sit with the leakers move and you know,
(03:56):
other groups might not move, and I'd sit there and
wait for the troops without flinching.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Of course, that's amazing. And was it a creepy place
to live in? Was it a scary place?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was year super scary? Actually when we were little, we
were in.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
The what's now the bedroom before my brother and I
had a room at the side, and we used to
climb out of the window and go across the rooms
to go to the bathroom because we wouldn't't want to
go past them haunted bedroom, you know, and their overhead experiences.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I used to well one of them. It used to
be we moved under.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
The music room and at night time just lieing petrified
because I could hear it, like someone's squeak, squeaks creak,
like someone walking. And then eventually I confessed about how
paralyzed were fear and someone said to me, oh, it's
just the building calling down, so you know, but often
it's trying to find the explanations. And we had rats
in the ceiling as well, so they'd scurry around, and
(04:56):
possums going outside. And then I heard footsteps one morning
when I was lying in bed thinking about getting up
and making breakfast for our guess, and they were unexplained.
So I went upstairs and I went to the kitchen,
looked at the sign and no one there, went around
the randa and then just came out and turned the
radios on and prayed for.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
People to get to work because that was unexplained.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So that sounds more like, you know, living in the
Adams family mentioned rather than in Lanark Castle. But what
a fantastic place you turned it into. I mean a
lot of a lot of work and so that was
your childhood, getting that place scrubbed up, and.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, yeah, my mother's the visionary behind that.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
And I gave a took the other night, and it
was about how that love for architecture had come down
through our family. My grandad was in the First World
War at the Battle of the Somme, so he was
one of only two of his unit to survive, and
he was very fortunate that he got He also was
in the Kiwis who went round and entertained the troops,
and he went to the Silvan University after he was
(06:03):
at the war because they had scholarships, and there he
learned the love for architecture and saw what it could be,
and bought beat the postcards and the programs.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
He was in the he went to the Paris Conservatoire
of Music.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
So amazing experience for a young man who'd been through
so much torture, I guess during that war. And then
he brought the postcards back, took to my mum about
them and stilled a lover architecture and her And then
when they came upon the castle, she could see the
potential there. So she's still working full time at eighty
three at the castle. It's a lifelong love and commitment.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Wow. It must have been a long way from other
kids and things as well. Living out on the out
on the on the peninsula that was. That must have
been tricky.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, we had.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
The local kids, you know that, and a lot of
the locals fors just down the road, so they'd come
up and we would.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I'm afraid we're a little bit naughty.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's all right. You're elected now you can confess hight under.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
The beds and grab people's ankles to make them friend.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
This is paying guests, so that look, I'm sure it
all added to the experience of living in a castle
for a while. Then you went off to boarding school.
And I saw in some notes that you wrote that
you went off to boarding school to learn social skills.
Did you feel like that that was a fat tongue
in cheek or was it you were actually a little
bit sort of.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Introvertedh oh, absolutely INTROVERTSI and I was the geek that
was allowed to get ten books out of the library.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
The usual limit was four. But I just read all
the time.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
And I think my mother thought that I needed a
good education and also to develop those social skills because
I just, you know, growing up in a scary old
castle out the Pincher. There was a long way away
then and the school buses didn't connect. So she thought
that I should go to boarding school.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Okay, and then off to Otaga University. If you didn't
learn social skills at at boarding school, you certainly led
it in probably the top social university in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, Well we had been locked up at boarding school
for five years and then let loose in the nineteen
eighties at Attagger University, so I certainly had a good time.
I did manage to get my degree in the end,
but it was an amazing time.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You know. We had all of the eighties sound all
of those bands.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
We didn't appreciate them at the time, I guess because
to us it was just normal. So it was a
great time and I learned a lot, not just academically.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So what did you do after university?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
While I was at Universe, I was working full time
at the castle as well. So I'd been taking tours
around since I was around about thirteen years old, and
then at eighteen, I was going up to Auckland, et cetera,
going around the travel agents with the briefcase and the postcards,
selling Dunedin and selling the castle as well, so I
was straight into the marketing.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I also did the operations. I did all the pays.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
That's when it was all cash, you know, and you'd
have ten cents over and we have to go through
all the pay packets again, running functions, just working really
really hard because we head to as a family to
get the castle up and going. In the eighties, we
were paying twenty four percent interest on our loans. You know,
people are going seven percent. We're like, yeah, we did
(09:25):
twenty four.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, So your whole working life really I know that
you went off and worked also for these at the
Otago Peninsula trust and looking after penguins and albatrosses and things,
and so your whole life has really been promoting Dunedin.
And so as you can do this automatically, give us
(09:47):
five great things about Dunedin that people should know about.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Well, I guess we're a city of first and only
and that's that's where we stand. So we've got I
have to say New seven Castle, don't I the Royal
Albatross Center, which is the world's only main end royal albatross.
We've got the world's rare as penguins with the yellow
eyed penguins, the world's smallest penguins. I worked at Blue
Penguis Pukakua there. And then we have our railway station,
(10:13):
which apparently is one of the most photographed buildings in
the Southern Hemisphere. So heritage and Wildlife Capital of New
Zealand and we are extremely proud of that.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Right, So why do people go Auckland grow to Ruer
christ jur Queenstown home Again?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I have no idea because the best experiences here.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah. So is that part of the thing you're going
to do is really try and drive to Eden to
become a tourist destination.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, we want to be a premier destination for the country.
We certainly have so much to offer our visitors, and
also just to raise our profile and work on our
economic development as well, because for a small city where
you certainly need to power up and all work in
partnership together to make us as fabulous as we can be.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Okay, well, what's the noun? Fabulosity is already there, I
just I guess getting people to know about it it is.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I think it's one of those PEPs. It's a Presbyterian
Scottish thing where.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
We just don't skche you know, and we need to
get out there and be better at skitching or sharing
or promoting our city because we're just a little bit
pequin and coming forward I think right.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Okay, well, look after the break, I'd like to talk
to you a bit more about what your dreams and
plans are for Dunedin, how you are wanting to promote it,
how you can get the city working in a way
that's going to drive it forward into the rest of
the twenty first century. My guest tonight is who Worship
the Mayor, Sophie Barker, Mayor of Dunedin, and I'll be
back with you in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news
Talks Abno Day.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Welcome back to real life. I'm John Cown talking with
Sophie Barker, the new mayor of Dunedin, and just to
prove her Otago credentials, she's chosen that to listen to.
What are we listening to?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Listening to the Chills one of my favorite bands and
Heavenly Pops. When I was in New York on time,
I went into the Gap store and this was playing
and this was amazing just to hear at Dunedin sound
in New York City. How far we've conquered the world
with it.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Did you go around the store telling people I come
from musical this was this band from your Celand? Or
did you but too introverted? You mentioned that Dunedin has
a Presbyterian here heritage, and you can see that very
readily as you walking around the octagon, looking up at
the big church there and everything. Did any of that
(13:15):
soak into you as you were growing up? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Absolutely, because my boarding school was I was there for
five years and we prayed an awful lot, and I
think about one of the prayers. I think was a
school prayer was make us quick to know and serve
the needs of others. And I think that were so
ingrained in a moral core in me, because sometimes I
do ask myself, why am I doing this, this public
public life? But it is about doing the best for
(13:38):
the people that live in our city.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Okay. And so it has been a lifetime of service.
And what drew you into politics in particular? Was it
that idea of service or was it just a I
just thought, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I never ever thought that I would end up in politics.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
It's not my thing, really, I guess that I was
at the time. I'd worked at the Council for seven
years prior to working for the Otago Peninsula Trust, and
I knew about with strategy.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
It's terrible thing.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I knew about all the strategies in the plans, and
I was really frustrated that we weren't carrying them out
and we weren't really working in partnership. So that's when
I decided to stand for counsel, was to try and
sort some things.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Out, Okay. And so local body politics it's a strange
way of scrumbing towards some type of destination. When some
people pulling in one direction and other people pulling in
the other. You want to make changes and people need changes,
and yet nobody wants changed when it's happening in their street,
and it must be frustrating. Does it weigh you down?
Speaker 4 (14:46):
I think I'm a really optimistic and positive person, so
sometimes it might.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
People complain about the orange cones.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Orange cones everywhere, and I do say what orange cones
are asually about progress. If we didn't have orange cones,
we wouldn't be doing the roadwork. So that's not about
the stuff isn't getting down. But I take it all,
I guess with the grain of salt, because we have
to have change in order to get things done, and
in order to one of the things I stood on
was transformation and change.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So be warned.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Well, okay, the people you've given them fair warning, they've
voted you, and they're going to get it. So and
look at I'd have to say, I go to Dunedin
quite often. In fact, I have to confess I know
that Dunedin struggles with a falling population, and I'm guilty
of plundering Dunedin of one of its finest women, so
or perhaps the finest woman. So I'm guilty of there.
(15:36):
But one of the things I noticed down there is
you get a great new venue and people complain about it.
They get a fantastic cycle way around the harbor and
people complain about it that you upgrade streets to make
it more odd and everything. Is there a way that
you can sort of get around that or is this
the headwind you battle all the time?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
The city is growing, so we have a lot of
student in flux, which is really really helpful. They're sort
of kind of the lively heart of the city and
the population has been growing.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
We're working on the as well.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
There will always be people who complain, but when you
actually look at what we've done with the cycle way
along the harbor. Just my mum is out on the penance,
so you just drive out there and see all of
the people using it. And the cycle away was on
the front cover of the New Zealand column magazine, so
this You know, people always moan and grown about change,
but the thing is that it's actually lifting our profile.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And one of my goals is to make us the
best place.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
To live in New Zealand and work on our liveability,
and those are all important parts because we don't do
that work, then we go backwards.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So we need to keep investing in our city.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I think that's just human nature. I remember people someone
saying with the skytower and Auckland, people grizzled about it
and now, oh, look at our skytower. And sometimes I
suppose that's the cost of leadership. You just need to
be the one that goes out in front of the crowd. Sometimes.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, you need to have that vision and you need
to need to get things done, and it always is difficult.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Look at our stadium.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It was a huge issue and still a slight challenge,
but we wouldn't have it share and doing all those concerts,
or when you go in there and there's a big
event happening, like the rugby that we won last last week,
the Otago game.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I was there and just the amazing feeling when everybody
stands up. You know, those are the moments that we
live for, right.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Oh, well, so that takes the courage. It's also a stress.
What do you do to handle stress? How do you know?
How do you vent your stress or cope with it?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Oh my gardener, gon't call a few weeds out, plant
a few plants cut on my kittens. That's that's really
I think I'm pretty grounded and I've had a very
public life, so I just I like to get out
into nature.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Kittens plural, Yes, Well, we've.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Got three cats so well the kittens, oh my gosh,
it was the kitten's birthday the.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Other day, one of them. So there are all rescue cats.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
We've got one deaf cat who'se gosh, he's about ten
I think, and then two rescue kittens that we got
at the start of the year for my daughter.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I'm a sucker. She kept seeing me for my chosen
until I create do. We love them very much and
they give us much joy.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I have no idea how you could tell whether a
cat is deaf. Every cat I've ever had you speak,
you know, they just ignore you when you're talking, and
you talk true, And you talk to worms as well.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Oh no, well I do. I h I probably do
when I take them up in the gardener sometimes.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Sorry, I think I heard that you're a worm farmer.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I am a worm farmer.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I do have my worm farm and get my wormb
juice out, so when you know, I can relate to
the farmers in a little bit.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
But love my gardening.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Okay, So that's a and I guess over the years
you've needed some ways of stress and handling it because
as well as your busy life, you've been a single
parent of soil my mum and so that must have
had lots of challenges over the years.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Yes, my daughter was gosh five and a half weeks
so least that was a bit of a surprise. But
I've had a lot of support from friends in my
mum as well, and I'm very lucky. My daughter is
a lovely young woman. She's actually working in the same
building as me today. She's a fourth year law student,
so she works a part time.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Well, say hi to us from us. And health hasn't
always been on your side either.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yes, well, I do win scar competitions.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
When I was gosh thirteen years old, I lost my
spleen in a horse riding accident and.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Of course i had an emergency zazarian with my.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Daughter and then I've had three brain operations in sixteen months.
Because the health system was a bit of a challenge,
so I.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Certainly have the scars to prove it. I breck your
nose as well.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You need better hobbies than that, gosh, that's so yeah.
Health system in Dunedin. That's one of the challenges. I'm
sure you're going to be tackling that hospital.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, it's number one on my list because we absolutely
have to keep advocating for a hospital. And we had
the march of thirty five thousand in our city to
get our hospital built to the business case.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And it is very important.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
So I'm in an office at the moment for another
couple of weeks and I can look out onto the
hospital build site and it's still got the T shirt.
So we're ready to march again if we have to.
That is number one issue for racity.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Okay, is that a battle with central government? I guess
mayors have to front up to Wellington quite often.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, it's central government because in the end they control
the purse string, so they just need to be kept
aware of that.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And it's not just an.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Eden's hospital, it's the hospital, premier hospital for the Southern region.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
So working with the other mayors.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Is really important, just just to get the hospital built.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
All the best for that and what else is on
your agenda if that's at your top, what else is?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, we've got economic growth.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
That's always a challenge for the city and I talked
a little bit about city promotion there, but my key
is to rebuild partnerships, is that we can do things together.
So I've been contacting a lot of the people that
get stuff done in the.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
City, and we make sure that you know, in the.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
University, our business community, the hospital, etc. To try and
get everyone to work together Manifena as well, so that
we can all. You know, we've got an amazing city.
We just need to get work in partnership well.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And my not infrequent visits did Edin, I look forward
to tracking the progress and seeing what's happening. And I
thank you so much for taking time tonight to speak
with us. So my guest tonight has been her worship
the Mayor's Sophie Barker, and she's picked another song, What
are we listening to as We're going out?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Shake It Off? By Taylor Swift.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
It is a song for many local body politicians, I think.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And what said you, Oh, don't.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Read the comments sections advice because people do say dreadful
things and you literally have to shake it off.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Well. I hope that there's lots of lovely comments in
there as well as the critical ones. And so thank
you so much for taking time for being with us tonight.
This is real life. I'm newsed Talks. I'd be looking
forward to being back with you again next Sunday night.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
For more from News Talk st B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio
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